Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was reading the Bunyip newspaper the other day and—

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a good read. An article under the headline 'Transport carries on' referred to the opening of the STC terminal, which was given a federal grant during the life of the previous government. I did not get an invite to the opening—which I think is a strange lapse of protocol by the Playford council, and I am sure one that will not be repeated. The Bunyip records:

Playford Mayor Glenn Dockerty, who officially opened the new Intermodal Terminal in lieu of Federal Infrastructure Minister Jamie Briggs and Liberal Senator for South Australia Sean Edwards, said this project sets the north up to the be the logistics hub of South Australia.

This is a very important project and it was one, as I said, that was commissioned in the last term of the Labor government, and one that I pushed along because of the obvious issues about unemployment in the local area. I think it will be a logistics hub for Adelaide.

You can understand why the member for Mayo, Mr Briggs, the federal Minister for Infrastructure, and Senator Sean Edwards cannot be seen together to open this project, because an article by Mr Butterly and Mr Probyn on page 8 of the West Australia tells us:

Senator Edwards took an expletive-filled call from Federal minister Jamie Briggs—

and this is about submarines—

accusing him of lying and deliberately misrepresenting the PM's position to bolster his Senate preselection chances.

The article went on:

Senator Edwards last night stood by his version of events.

'There might be one of two highly ambitious colleagues about the place and that's fine, but the reality is there were but two people a party to that telephone conversation,' he said.

'Your anonymous correspondent wasn't one of them.'

We know that these two members of the Liberal Party in South Australia are at each other's throats, and we know that the shadow of the Senate Liberal Party preselections for South Australia hang in the balance. Senator Edwards is determined, as I understand it, to push Senator Fawcett to perhaps an unwinnable place on the Senate ticket.

I have something to do with both Senator Edwards and Senator Fawcett. I have had both of them campaign against me, and I can tell you that Senator Fawcett is a much tougher opponent on the campaign trail and a much better adornment to this parliament than Senator Edwards is.